His Image 8-27-06
Genesis 1:26-2:3 (NIV)
26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." 29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day.
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
In the previous verses, we saw that God created space, matter and light. Then He set about bringing order where there was none and filled the emptiness with life. The first three days brought order to the initial creation and the next three filled the order of heavens, sky, seas, and land with stars, birds, fish, and animals.
Our passage begins with the final and crowning act of creation on the sixth day. God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness… Who is God talking to? Who is the “us” in the passage. Some have suggested the angels, but the text clearly says that God is the Creator, not God and angels. (verse 31) Others believe this is the honorific plural, as in the Hebrew word for God, Elohim. But unlike most passages in which Elohim acts, the verb in our passage is plural. If we look back to the beginning of the chapter we see the Spirit of God hovering, or brooding, over the face of the waters. Obviously God and the Spirit are working together. The New Testament makes it clear that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were all involved in creation. (Hebrews 1:1-2) We saw that in the first three verses of chapter one.
If the “us” is the holy Trinity, then what does it mean that we are made in the image of God. The text does not clearly tell us. There is a lot of speculation, and the popular interpretation has changed over the years. I have personally considered it to mean that we are a trinity as well, body, soul (mind, will and emotions) and spirit. But, if we are to take the context as a clue, perhaps it is in our position of ruling over creation. The image still remains, though it has been marred by sin. The image we see today is not as clear as it was in Adam and Eve.
It may be that we can best see what that was like by looking at the life of Jesus. He was not marred by sin. The image in Him was not marred but as the author of Hebrews tells us, He is the exact representation of God’s being. (Hebrews 1:3) Jesus could command the fish of Galilee into the nets of the disciples. (Luke 5:6) The unbroken donkey’s foal yielded its back to the Master. (Luke 19:30) Even the wind and waves obeyed His command. (Luke 8:25) He ruled over creation. But more than this authority over physical things, He lived in communion with God, carrying out God’s will in the earth. Was this the kind of authority that God initially gave Adam and Eve? It certainly sounds like it to me. They were to rule over the creatures God filled the earth with, vice-regents over creation, the son and daughter of God, as Luke tells us. (Luke 3:38)
The psalmist speaks of this in Psalm 8. He asks why God should be so gracious to man. He goes on to say that God crowned us with glory and honor. (Psalm 8:4-5) Because of this passage, Christian Pastor Chuck Misler believes that Adam and Eve were clothed in glory. The psalm point out their authority over all creatures. The author of Hebrews tells us that we don’t experience this kind of glory and honor, but that we saw it expressed in the life of Jesus. (Hebrews 2:8-9) He came that we might be brought to the glory that was originally intended by God.
Though through the fall the image was marred and the glory faded, we still carry the echo of that image. We see it in the best of leaders. We see it when people unselfishly give themselves for others, but even when we don’t see it expressed it is there. Adam said that his son Seth was born in his image, in his likeness. (Genesis 5:3) That image of God has been passed down to every person born. The potential to express that inherent image is there in everyone. That is why Judeo-Christian culture values human life. James goes so far as to say that this is the reason we should never curse another person; they are made in the image of God. (James 3:9) We should be treating one another with dignity and respect because we are all made in the image of God. Criminals are incarcerated so that they can’t continue to harm others who are made in the image of God. We oppose abortion because every aborted baby was made in the image of God. We are shocked by the murder of any group of people anywhere in the world because they are made in the image of God.
This understanding should lead us away from prejudice. It doesn’t matter what your color, nationality, or language is, you are made in the image of God. We should be respectful of others because we know this is true. No matter how marred the image, no matter how little of it is expressed in daily life, the potential is there.
Notice that both man and woman were created in His image. From the very beginning we see that both sexes were honored with the image of God. They are to rule side by side, not one over the other. Though the New Testament will define different roles because of different design, male and female are equal in value and importance because both are made in the image of God. (Ephesians 5:33)
In verse 28, God spoke to them. Man and woman were unique in that they were to hear the voice of God and respond to it. This also shows our special place in God’s creation. He also blessed them. This is the second blessing in the chapter. (Genesis 1:22) Both blessings have to do with procreation. They were to complete the work of God in filling the earth and had the blessing of God to carry it out.
In verse 29 and 30 we see that the original people and creatures were meant to be herbivores. God provided all they needed for subsistence in the plants and trees. That changed after the flood. It is hard for us to imagine creation before the fall. The canopy of water in the upper atmosphere would have filtered much of the harmful UV rays that are a major factor in aging. It would have caused the atmospheric pressure to be higher so the oxygen levels would be more concentrated. Plants were larger and more abundant. In some types of injuries today the injured person is placed in a hyperbaric chamber that reproduces what life would have been like in the conditions before the flood. Wounds heal in a fraction of the time. Plants grow many times their normal size. In the garden there is no mention of death. Death enters when sin enters. It would be as hard for us to imagine that world as it would have been for Adam to imagine ours.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day. The final declaration in regards to creation is that it was all very good. That is because God is good. (Psalm 119:68) We look out at our world today and realize that something terrible happened to all that goodness, but we’ll get to that part of the story in a few weeks. Right then, at the end of the sixth day, everything God made was not just good, it was very good. We see the remnant of all that goodness when we admire creation, marvel at a sunset, or bird soaring on the wind. But the best of this beautiful earth today is only a faint shadow of the goodness that filled the earth at the end of the sixth day. The very best of this world is only a hint of the goodness that God has in store for those who love Him. (1Corinthians 2:9)
The chapter divisions in our Bible are often in the middle of an idea or story. A sixteenth century printer named Stephanus added the chapter and verse numbers to the Bible. As the story goes, he was riding a horse from one place to another when he began this difficult task. Considering his work environment, we can excuse some of these awkward divisions. The first chapter concludes its thought in chapter 2, verse 3. If you are in the habit of reading to the chapter divisions, watch for the thought or topic carrying on into the next chapter. You might read a verse or two ahead to see that the division is in the appropriate place. If your Bible has subheadings, read one complete subheading at a time to get the full idea presented, even if it ends after the chapter break.
If the six days were good, the seventh makes it clear that the Creator has your best interests at heart. 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. That is how it happened. We know more of the extent of the vastness of that array than they did when they first received this text. From countless galaxies to life on the bottom of the sea floor to the microcosms of the subatomic world, the vastness is almost incomprehensible. How much more is yet to be discovered by man? In that vast array are the genes of Adam that you and I inherited. God was planning for us too. (Jeremiah 1:5)
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. God’s final blessing on the first week was a blessing on the seventh day. We saw in the case of the first two blessings that blessing meant fruitfulness. God blessed the seventh day for spiritual fruitfulness. I won’t go into the reasons that the early church moved their worship day to the first day of the week. The Apostle Paul warns that we should not argue over such things. (Romans 14:5-6) The important thing is to take time to cease from your works as God did from His. God made it a holy day. That is where we derived our word holiday. It was a day set apart from the normal workdays to be a special day to the Lord.
God set us an example to follow. We all need to take time off of our regular routines to worship. It has been verified that a day a week to take your mind away from your regular routine is not only a great way to reduce stress but makes a big difference in our health. God is concerned about our physical body as well as our spirit. When we order our lives according to God’s design it is best for us spiritually and physically. (Isaiah 58:13-14)
God was in no way exhausted from His creative work. The word “rested” can also be translated “ceased”. In other words, on the seventh day He ceased from His work of forming and filling the world, but that doesn’t mean He is idle or taking a nap. That is what many of us do, but God neither slumbers nor sleeps. (Psalm 121:4) Jesus said that God is always at work. (John 5:17) He has taken up a different kind of work, not one of creation, but of re-creation. That sounds like recreation, and I’m sure God enjoys it, but it is serious work. That work involves us.
Before I describe to you this work, it is important for us to understand a Biblical concept that the seventh day has not ended. Unlike every other day, God did not pronounce that there was evening and morning on the seventh day. Instead He merely says that He ceased from this work of forming and filling and made it holy. God isn’t making any new creatures, or new laws by which our world is governed. Instead, what He created is operating as He designed it from the beginning. Things are changing shape and form, but there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
After showing that the generation of the Children of Israel that left Egypt never made it to the promised land, the author of Hebrews tells us that entering the Promised Land is an analogy of entering into the rest of the seventh day. He says that hundreds of years later the Psalmist wrote that there is still a rest for the children of God today. (Hebrews 4:7-8) (He follows up with this conclusion, 9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10 for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience. Hebrews 4:9-11 (NIV) Their disobedience caused them to not make it into the Promised Land, the place of rest. The Promised Land was not a place where no one had to work, but it was a place of abundance. They were going to inherit homes they didn’t build. Fields they hadn’t cleared. Wells they hadn’t dug. So much had already been done for them. But the author of Hebrews says they never entered in because they disobeyed. Then he tells us that this is a spiritual analogy, a picture that God painted in history to warn us. Entering into Christ is entering into the seventh day of God. Jesus has earned for us what we could never earn for ourselves. His perfect keeping of the law, His sinless life, is credited to us. We don’t have to fear that our works won’t measure up. They never could. (Titus 3:5)
By receiving the work Christ did in our place, we have peace with God. We can rest from our own work of trying to be righteous. The life of Jesus in us enables us to express the fruits of the Spirit without fleshly effort. (Hebrews 4:10) The Spirit of God is recreating our lives in to be like the Son of God, Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:29) This is the work God has been up to since His work of forming and filling the earth was completed. He has been forming and filling lives of individual after individual.